British Olympic gold medallists, Tom Daley and Charlotte Worthington have outlined how brands can get the most from a partnership with athletes and Team GB, in a keynote at Brand Licensing Europe 2021.
Speaking to Anna Knight, vp licensing, Informa Markets, the athletes shared their thoughts on how brands can maximise collaborations with athletes. Tom Daly commented: “I think the most important thing is to be able to align your brand values and your key messages and ethos with an athlete that shares similar things.
“If you can find someone that shares that same message and that same value, and you can see them really being able to talk openly and honestly about your brand and your product, that is when people aren’t going to be like ‘well this is weird’.”
He continued: “You don’t want it to feel like it’s being forced and you don’t want it to feel like it’s disjointed, or really over the top or in your face. The best thing to do is create a key message and a real key campaign that you want to be able to spread and then find someone that aligns with that and tell a story, tell something that is a little bit more in depth than just wearing a t-shirt with a brand. It’s about ‘what is that brand’s message?’, ‘Why should people buy your product and not anyone else’s?’ And I think that’s where the key messaging really comes into play.”
The duo also outlined the challenges faced by athletes finding the time to work with brands and how to manage those working relationships. Charlotte Worthington said: “All that I would ask for brands is that they work fairly. It can be quite tough for Olympic athletes and athletes in general to make their money outside of their funding.”
Despite the challenges however, the panel agreed that athletic brand partnerships can help brands to reach new audiences. Charlotte continued: “Working with athletes can be inspiring and it can be so relatable for children who have come from very normal backgrounds.
“One of the great things about Team GB working with BMX freestyle is that we could really attract this niche, younger audience. There is definitely the opportunity to reach an urban audience as well and it can be styled in many different ways.”
A key way to develop the relationship with a new audience is through honest and relatable stories, which are in abundance with athletes, as Team GB’s commercial director, Tim Ellerton, explained: “Team GB is a team of amazing athletes, but by continuing to invest in the brand itself, we are creating some amazing content stories. We want people to know who Charlotte is before she does her amazing things. And now people can follow Charlotte on her journey through, along with all the other athletes and allow brands to join them on that journey.
“That’s fascinating, people want to get inside the minds and lives of these amazing people and understand what makes them tick and why they do what they do in a credible way and it’s an amazing opportunity for brands to be associated with that.”
During the keynote, the athletes also discussed the challenges of training for Tokyo during a global pandemic. Tom explained: “We were forced to find new ways of training. We were forced to think outside the box in order to carry on training throughout a pandemic. I started off doing somersaults on my sofa cushions, I was doing online workouts with my team whenever I possibly could.
“I went into the Olympic games with a completely different perspective than I’ve ever had before in my life. It was an understanding that anything can change at any moment. You can’t control the uncontrollable and sometimes you have to just ride the waves of change.”
Charlotte had a different take on the delay: “Having the extra year was actually a huge benefit to me. At the start of the year, I wasn’t in the best place mentally and I was also suffering with a shoulder injury which has been ongoing for some time. So at the start of ’21, things were looking kinda bleak.
“I was lucky enough to get into the USA, where Covid restrictions were a little less. I got to be one on one with my coach and I had a three-month block there, where I dislocated my shoulder again. But it’s crazy, it’s like all these horrible things that happened in the build up to the games actually really made me the person that I needed to be at the games. I think if it had been smooth sailing, I actually think I wouldn’t have been tough enough to pull off the whole day.”
From a licensing perspective, The Point.1888 had to manage the delay with Team GB’s partners. Will Stewart, md, explained: “It was really brutal. We had huge amounts planned and it was really difficult to replicate that a year on. But the key thing for us was kindness ultimately. We had partners who had committed stock and were doing things they had paid incredible amounts of money to associate and support the athletes.
“So for us, it was about pre-empting any pain these licensees were having and being kind to them and saying ‘Look this is the situation, we’re all in it together’ – which is pretty much the team message – and we can delay MGs, extend contracts and find a way to make it less painful. It wasn’t an easy time, but it ended up being quite rewarding.”
It’s situations like these and the stories and achievements arising from them, which strengthen the brand of both Team GB and athletes themselves for licensees, as Tim commented: “People like Charlotte and Tom and 373 others that went over to Tokyo are inspirational people and I think that’s what brands and licensees are tapping into as much as possible. Because the values that they have, we always use this phrase – they’re ordinary people achieving extraordinary things – are why our licensed partners want to get close to them. Brands want to engage with that because it’s a very powerful, credible message.”
Will agreed: “The athletes of Team GB are heroes and they’re very humble and it’s amazing seeing what they do in their day to day lives. They can become real heroes, but they are the poster athletes for the entire industry. I think sports, competition, gaming and that whole thing – playing as a general trend is going to be absolutely key going forward.”
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